What would pot's passage mean to Florida?

It might be lucrative, and pervasive ... but a lot also depends on who prevails in the governor's race.

By MICHAEL POLLICKmichael.pollick@heraldtribune.com

If voters amend the state's constitution in November to allow the use of medical marijuana, Florida could witness the birth of an $800-million-a-year industry.

In short order, Florida would become the second-largest marijuana market in the nation, behind only California.

But the variables in the financial equation of a law that would take effect Jan. 6 are many, starting with who ends up being Florida's next governor.

The proposed amendment — which requires approval by 60 percent or more of the state's voters — would give Florida's Department of Health six months to start issuing ID cards to patients who can produce physician letters of recommendation, and nine months to write rules and register medical marijuana treatment centers.

Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican running for re-election, has made it clear he is against legalizing pot. Attorney General Pam Bondi is opposed, too. She tried to kill the amendment by arguing before the Florida Supreme Court that the amendment's wording was misleading, though the court ultimately ruled in favor of keeping the proposal on the ballot.

Scott's likely Democratic opponent, former governor Charlie Crist, works for Orlando lawyer John Morgan, who bankrolled the petition drive to get the amendment on the November ballot.

Norm Kent — a Florida attorney who is immediate past chairman of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or NORML, the nation's best known pro-pot group — said he thinks the outcome of the race will strongly influence how medical marijuana plays out in Florida, assuming the referendum passes.

“If Rick Scott is re-elected, backed by an attorney general who opposed the amendment, and a Legislature overwhelmingly supportive of him, dispensaries will be limited, rules will be restrictive and months will pass before allocations are made to empower the wellness centers,” Kent said.

Crist's “election will lead to a generous scenario with multiple wellness centers, likely patterned after states where there is leniency,” he added.

It is estimated that tens of thousands of Floridians already use medical marijuana to assist in cancer therapy, reduce pain or inflammation or dampen tremors associated with Parkinson's disease.

The National Cannabis Industry Association projects that retail medical marijuana sales in Florida will reach $785 million per year, based on state-by-state numbers from Arcview Market Research.

“We're talking about a year in which the program is up and fully running,” said Taylor West, deputy director of the Denver-based National Cannabis Industry Association.

The number of jobs created is tough to predict, experts say. Colorado's medical marijuana industry — excluding legal recreational use, which went into effect this year — has created 5,000 to 10,000 jobs. But Florida has nearly four times the population of Colorado.

Some other analysts believe Florida is likely to exceed the $785 million projection rather quickly.

The association's Florida estimate is based on just 1.4 percent of the state's 19.3 million residents — 260,000 patients — registering to use cannabis, with each spending $3,020 per year on some form of the drug.

But the estimate does not include ancillary industries, such as site selection, legal fees or marketing.

But the amendment leaves use open for any “other conditions for which a physician believes that the medical use of marijuana would likely outweigh the potential health risks for a patient.”

That last part could dramatically push up the number of patients who use marijuana, proponents and critics alike say.

If the constitutional amendment passes, the Sunshine State could become a focal point for marijuana sales nationwide, says Kevin Sabet, director of the Drug Policy Institute at the University of Florida.

“Florida will become a southeast hub for marijuana, because it will so easy to get,” Sabet said. “This is a California-style initiative that is going to sell marijuana to anyone with a pulse.”

That has some critics vociferously opposing the referendum.

“What we will most likely, (almost certainly) see is a proliferation of marijuana dispensaries in our communities, because the profit potential here is enormous,” Sarasota County Sheriff Thomas M. Knight wrote in a guest editorial in the Herald-Tribune.

“Thus, Venice, Fla., could mirror Venice, Calif., where medical dispensaries are a common sight along the famous beach.

“Can you imagine Siesta Key Village or St. Armands Circle with marijuana dispensaries at every turn?”

California failed to adopt any statewide standards, leaving them to municipalities.

Florida, conversely, would be required by its amendment to have statewide regulations covering treatment centers, personal caregivers and patients.

“Venice Beach is an example of a place where, because you don't have uniformity of state regulations, some practices are happening that aren't happening in Colorado,” said West, the National Cannabis Industry Association official.

So how big would Southwest Florida's share of a burgeoning medical marijuana industry be?

Eventually 30 to 40 dispensaries in the Sarasota-Bradenton area might spread out roughly in the same way that drugstores are now, says NORML executive director Allen St. Pierre.

“Where local mores and values are conservative, we will have the equivalent of dry counties,” St. Pierre predicted. “That is probably what is going to happen in a number of places in Florida.”

That is where the Florida Legislature and the state's Department of Health, which would regulate and administer medical marijuana, come in.

The Legislature, for its part, would have a big say in implementation. Some estimates say the two-page amendment could inspire more than 100 pages of rules.

The Department of Health would be charged with developing rules for patients, personal caregivers and treatment centers.

The amendment does not discuss, however, whether such centers should be for-profit entities or nonprofits. Nor does the it specify whether dispensaries could be in retail shopping centers or mut be relegated to industrial areas.

Experts say both questions would fall under the purview of lawmakers and Health Department bureaucrats.

Commercial areas often work well, said Dale Sky Jones, chancellor of Oaksterdam University in Oakland Calif., a school that educates pot patients and business acolytes.

“They bring a lot of traffic,” Jones said. “We are talking about the economy, about job creation, and not just direct spending, but in ancillary industries.”

But banking might be a different story. Under federal law, marijuana is still considered illegal, leaving many bankers wary of accepting pot stores' cash.

Guidance issued Feb. 14 by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network provides a framework for banks to accept money from marijuana businesses for the first time. The seven pages of guidance may help, but neither bankers nor the fledgling cannabis industry think it goes far enough.

“Guidance or regulation doesn't alter the underlying challenge for banks,” American Banking Association president Frank Keating said. “As it stands, possession or distribution of marijuana violates federal law, and banks that provide support for those activities face the risk of prosecution and assorted sanctions.”

West, from the Cannabis Industry Association, said the guidance remains a step in the right direction.

“It is clear that the feds intended to create a very specific road map for banks to serve this industry,” he said. “There is a bill in Congress that would more definitively clear the path, and that continues to be a top priority for the industry.”

Aside from federal policies, dispensary owners have to deal with a labyrinth of state and local rules.

In Arizona, a conservative state with an older population not unlike Florida's, medical marijuana became law in mid-2010.

Four years later, regulations are still evolving.

That is partly the result of litigation, which has slowed implementation.

Both Arizona government and Maricopa County, home to Phoenix, filed unsuccessful lawsuits to stop a successful referendum from taking effect.

It took until August 2012 just to issue the licenses for the dispensaries.

“The whole thing has been an emotional roller coaster,” said Mark Steinmetz, the licensee on two medical marijuana dispensaries in the Phoenix area under the name “Nature's AZ Medicines.”

Steinmetz and his wife spent tens of thousands of dollars in 2012 to apply to open five dispensaries before winning the right to run two. Another year would pass before Steinmetz opened for business.

At one of the sites, where his customers' average age is 60, local government has been very restrictive regarding hours of operation — and even amenities.

Steinmetz was forbidden, at least initially, from providing free water or coffee to customers and patients.

“Pharmacies are allowed to operate from 8 to 10 Monday through Sunday, but I am limited to 9 to 5 Monday through Friday because I am marketing medicine that is still politically incorrect.”